John Edward White

John Edward White was a consultant dermatologist in Southampton. He was born in Mortlake, the son of George Edward White, a Lloyds insurance broker and company director, and Mary Evelyn White, a housewife. He was educated at City of London School and then went on to study medicine at St Thomas’s. While he was studying he gained several scholarships, including the William Tite scholarship and the Grainger testimonial prize in anatomy.

He held house posts at St Thomas’s from 1960 to 1961, and at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, from 1961 to 1962. He was a medical registrar at Scarborough Hospital and then returned to St Thomas’s, where he was registrar in the chest department and then medical registrar. In January 1966 he was appointed as a registrar in the department of dermatology, at St Thomas’s, and subsequently became a senior registrar. From 1968 to 1970 he was a research fellow in the department of dermatology, Scripps Clinical Research Foundation, La Jolla, California. He then became a senior registrar in the department of photobiology at the Institute of Dermatology in London, eventually becoming a lecturer. In 1972 he was appointed as a senior lecturer and consultant dermatologist at Southampton.

He was president of the Southampton Medical Society and also established the Solent Skin Society. He was one of the first to recognise Lyme disease in the UK.

He was chairman of the Romsey Hospital Appeal for the last three years of his life and organised various fundraising events.

Outside medicine, he was a keen sailor, a member of the Royal Ocean Racing and the Royal Lymington Yacht clubs, and competed at Cowes regatta for many years. He was a Romsey town councillor, a committee member of Romsey Building Preservation Trust, president of the local rugby club and the first chairman of Romsey and District Society.